The Charms of Beauty

In Alexandra Stoddard's delightful book, The Decoration of Houses, she talks about the art of making our homes a haven. We can all transform our spaces into a feast for our senses and a well of deep, lasting comfort.

This is how she talks about the fabrics we use in dressing up our spaces: "I have often said, "If your fabrics aren't fading, you should move." I love the way fabrics fade in the light. We should start out with colors as fresh as crayons in a box, and accept the inevitable bleaching over time from the light and warmth of the sun."

And then, she goes on: "No new material is as charming as one that has been loved up by sunshine. The energy from the sun penetrates the textile and, however subtle, is felt. Just as teenagers love faded jeans and even buy them in this condition, so bleached-out fabric, a symbol of hours of sunlight, should be cherished. To live in the dark to protect your textiles is a sad waste of potential vitality."

When she talks about textures, she tells us to look beyond just fabrics, and also think about the textures of natural objects: "Texture exists everywhere in nature; we grasp it through our senses of sight and touch. We see the grain in the wood, and feel its splintered or sanded surface. We see the shiny or dull surface of pebbles, and feel their smooth or rough surface. A seashell, a maple leaf, a wild-flower, grass, a cliff face, moss, soil, bark, sand, sea water - each has a unique texture that deepens our experience of nature."

And then she says something that gleams like a blue pond: "The more authentic the textures in your rooms, the greater your sense of fulfillment and stability."

Bringing the textures that we love inside our houses - the real interplay of rough and soft - help make our homes a sanctuary. There is an emotional comfort in being surrounded by familiar, evocative textures and by those textures that are real. 

Here, in India, I re-encounter textures I haven't experienced for the last two years. There is a different weave to the life lived here - there are hand-woven chattais and dhurries (rugs , clay pottery, block-printed Jaipuri bed-sheets. 

In an incense store, I buy diffuser oils that comfort my soul. One of them is magnolia and it reminds me of the prayers from my childhood, when incense sticks were lit and the perfume wafted deep into the room, and became inextricably linked with feelings of comfort. 

Another is aniseed, and I love how I can almost taste its sweetness in my mouth, and think that when I go back to America, I need to brew some aniseed tea. 

I see with fresh eyes the motifs of the ambi or the mango that are part of many textile designs. I think of shaking mango trees with sticks in my grandparent's homes to eat the raw, tangy mangoes. An image of my great-grandmother's grape vine springs to mind. 

All these colors, patterns, fragrances awaken and create little ripples. I can reach through and inside them to different parts of me at different times. They have tied up in them times of innocence, a time when the world was fresh and new. 

After two years away from India, I feel like consciously inviting them in - the sounds of prayers that are deeper than the rivers, the fragrances that live in joyous trees, the rich weave of life from which so many beautiful arts spring forth. Adding them to my new life would make it deeper, more textured, more complete. It would be a declaration of all my different loves, and the way they nourish and feed my soul. 

Being Creative

In his small and wonderful book, The Courage to Create, Rollo May illuminates the mysterious, glorious subject of creativity in such a wonderful way. I am in love with his mind and his thoughts. 

Creativity needs encounter, he says, when something inside us meets the outside world, and something new is born into the world. 

And for this meeting, this alchemy to take place, we artistes need tools. 

We need our pens and paintbrushes and musical instruments. These tools make us as much as we make something with them. Without them, we are unformed, undeveloped. With them, we realize the potential that was always inside us, but that had no shape and form.  

With our tools, we mold ourselves. We give ourselves shape and form. 

I believe and understand this now. And if you are someone who is asking, am I an artiste, am I, the answer lies in picking up a camera or a pen or taking a design class. Engaging with different tools will help you encounter your creative spirit. You will find your joys and loves and shape the magical, powerful energy that is swirling inside you. 

And as you give birth to what's inside you, you too will be born. 

How is this creating different from a child's play ? Mature creativity, May says, is about staying with the anxiety of not knowing whether you will be able to bring your visions to completion. 

You may have an idea in your head about a  book, or a series of paintings, or a performance piece. But your struggle with the void to bring something new into being has no guarantees. 

The dance piece, the work of art exists perfectly in your head. But can you bring it to life? 

All artistes, all creative people struggle with this feeling, this sense of going out into the forest where there are no maps. And that takes courage.

Creativity, in its true form, is the process of "bringing something new into being." The something new will take time to sprout wings, and in its hatching stage, it might look ungainly. 

We, as artistes, have to find the courage to stay with this weird and wonderful being, have to believe in our visions, have to feel our frailty as we sense our way through the darkness. We have no guarantees, and that's the challenge of our calling, to move forward in faith, to knock on the door and believe that our knock will be answered.